May 28th, 2020 — How to teach grammar
In class
The class started by reviewing the activities for the fifth evaluation; then, the teacher explained all we needed to know regarding the reflective essay, which is one of the activities prior discussed. He provided the guideline and criteria to assess the essay, as well as the questions we needed to answer in it.
We continued with three more rules an instructor should follow when teaching grammar: The Rule of Relevance, The Rule of Nurture, and The Rule of Appropriacy.
My comments
I liked that we got guiding questions to create our reflective essay; that makes it easier.
The Rule of Relevance is so important; we just need to teach what we know that our students do not know! We can use the connections between the target and native language so the learners internalize everything faster. By doing so, we also get to know what they already now and the class can be focused on what they do not know.
For me, The Rule of Nurture refers to teach the functions of the language and not just a list of grammar rules and exercises. You can teach grammar by using authentic texts in the class, so students start understanding and acquiring grammatical structures, inductively.
The Rule of Appropriacy tells you that any of the other rules matter if you can adapt them in your teaching context. They are not written in stone, as the teacher said, you can even not teach grammar at all, and that is fine, but only if that suits your teaching environment.
